Freedom Direct holidays update

Travel news: The liquidators of failed freedom direct holidays, have blamed the collapse on the failure of the company to finalise its accounts on time.

It sickeningly pathetic that the loss of 80 jobs and distress caused to holidaymakers, is caused by some idiot not finalizing the accounts. We call for the directors to be prosecuted and banned from holding such positions again.

Retailer and operator Freedom Direct Holidays went into voluntary liquidation on Thursday, April 16. Freedom Direct holidays traded without an ATOL until its collapse, when the Civil Aviation Authority pulled its £250,000 bond.

This means the company were working on impossibly tight margins and had no cash reserves, they must have been trading virtually insolvent… Its no wonder no one wanted to bale them out

Liquidators RMT blamed the company’s failure on the fact it was unable to finalise its company accounts on time to renew its ATOL licence at the end of March.

“RMT initially entered discussions with a number of parties to establish whether Freedom Direct Holidays could continue to operate, renew its bond and retain its workforce.

“We also explored a number of options, including transferring the business to another ATOL licence holder and investigating within the travel industry as to whether any other organisation was able to take the Freedom Direct Holidays business forward. Regrettably, this was not possible due to the time constraints.”

But Pott said discusssions were continuing. “There is still the possibility that another travel operator could take over the business. We are currently in discussions with a number of interested parties.”

He added that the failure illustrated how quickly a business could fail if its accounts were not available for specific deadlines.